Now they had to refine them and think about how to pitch them to investors or customers.

鈥淕o back to your product statement, what your product is, and then tell us your core feature,鈥� instructor Brandon Martin, founder of a startup company, told the four groups of high schoolers at a new training center in Detroit. 鈥淎fter we do this 鈥� we kind of map this out a little bit.鈥� 

The seminar and the training center itself would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, when people struggling with homelessness and drug addiction 鈥� not young people looking to build their future 鈥� overran what was then a crumbling ruin of a building.聽

The teens were gathered in a new Boys and Girls Club created on the fifth floor of the old Michigan Central Station. , the 18-story tower was abandoned in 1988 and quickly vandalized, making its surrounded by razor wire .

In 2018, after several plans to restore or raze the station failed, the Ford Motor Company stepped in and spent nearly $1 billion over six years to create a 30-acre innovation campus out of the station and some surrounding buildings, including a former post office that had also been abandoned for decades.

Today, the Beaux Art station鈥檚 three-story concourse, designed by the same architects as New York City鈥檚 Grand Central Station, is now restored as a showpiece and reception hall.

Floors that had been gutted now serve as Ford offices. A hotel will soon occupy the top five floors. Shops and cultural activities are also being added. And the former post office next door now houses startup companies that use space and manufacturing equipment provided by Ford to try to grow their business.

Youth training is an important part of the mix, with Ford devoting an entire 17,000 square-foot floor to career exposure and entrepreneurship efforts for young people ages 14 to 24.

鈥淚f you want to fill the jobs of the future, you鈥檝e got to start with students,鈥� said Janelle Arbuckle-Michael, Michigan Central鈥檚 associate director for K-12 initiatives. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to start with exposure. You got to start with opportunities. And you have to have a pathway for them to go.鈥�

Arbuckle-Michael said having youth learn about careers in the same campus as innovators and new companies offers chances for teens to learn about 鈥� and from 鈥� the businesses, who can attract new employees or collaborators as students grow and learn.

The youth training floor鈥檚 first tenant didn鈥檛 work out 鈥� a Google program teaching computer coding launched in 2024 but left a year later. But Michigan Central now splits the floor between a design program run by Grand Valley State University and with a few local nonprofits, including one that trains teens in flying drones. The Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Detroit is by far the biggest, taking over three fourths of the floor.

The Boys and Girls Club spent about $4 million, including donations from the foundations of singers Usher and Big Sean, to turn the shell of brick walls into a training center with cutting edge equipment for broadcast, music and fashion design that teens can use to develop products and businesses. The club also offers classes, mentors and presentations by professionals to guide them, often from young adult business owners who are allowed to share the space in return for being teachers and mentors.

Sean Wilson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Detroit, said children born in poverty rarely reach the top without help, so the clubs have made it their mission to offer it. 

鈥淚t’s about providing youth with various forms of capital, unique opportunities that act as an intervention and a catalyst to move them up the ladder,鈥� Wilson said. 

鈥淔or them to be able to sit right next to startups 鈥� that proximity is ultimately, I think, the secret sauce, the cheat code to help our kids achieve mobility,鈥� he added.

The club opened in February, but it has already helped students start businesses. 

Meshach Charles, 18, learned some basic business skills at neighborhood Boys and Girls Clubs before graduating from Detroit Public Schools鈥� Cass Technical High School last spring. The mentoring and guidance at the Michigan Central Club has helped him start his own landscaping business, including just registering as a limited liability corporation and helping him plan to open bank accounts, seek grants and apply for a tax identification number.

Club staff also taught him how to make connections with other businesses and find people he can trust to help guide him.

鈥淚 need to be cautious, but I also need to put myself out there a little bit more than I am right now,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat’s definitely helping.鈥�

Alaysha Hayes, 18, a student at both Roseville High School north of the city and Macomb Community College, is growing her new fashion business, Alay Customs. With that business, she sews outfits on her own, or works with clients to add decorations and highlights to clothes they provide for special occasions such as proms or weddings.

鈥淚n the Black culture, they do prom really, really big,鈥� Hayes said. 鈥淪o they like appliqu茅s, rhinestones and things like that to go with the women’s dresses. We hand sew all of these pieces onto the suit, and it just really gives it a nice look.鈥�

Hayes learned sewing and fashion design skills at a neighborhood Boys and Girls Club, then applied to take classes and use equipment at Michigan Central. There, the club gives her workspace and she can use high-end equipment 鈥� including a $30,000 sewing machine 鈥� she鈥檇 never be able to afford.

鈥淚’m able to bring my clients here to do fittings.鈥� she said. 鈥淚t’s a very professional workspace, and I’m able to get a lot of stuff done. When you’re home, you don’t get as much stuff done as if you were in an office space.鈥�

Kevin Haynes, executive director of the club, said the club doesn鈥檛 provide the materials for students to mass-produce items. Their businesses have to buy those. But providing computer, film, sound and fashion labs with top equipment gives them a big advantage.

鈥淵ou gotta understand, some of these young people are working on these designs in a basement and somebody’s second bedroom or something like that, so they don’t have a 鈥� creative space to work with things,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e’re giving them access to equipment that they may not have access to. And here they are rent free. They have the workspace. You have a workbench, you have materials, you have a space where you can collaborate with other people. That’s a tremendous value.鈥�

Classes are also a large part of the program, with single-day or multi-week lessons after school, in evenings or on weekends on business topics including finance, branding or marketing. The club also offers how-to sessions on podcasts, aerospace engineering, coding, health technology, and using camera angles, lighting and special effects in film.

The entrepreneurship class Martin taught had a focus on health in sports. Martin鈥檚 company, was created in 2022 to prevent football injuries, so he brings recent startup experience to the lessons.

As part of his eight-week seminar, Martin had teens, all 17 and under, come up with ideas to improve sports or make them more accessible to young people. They suggested: creating an app showing how to train different parts of the body; shoes that can swap soles for different sports; listing free athletic opportunities for low income youth and regularly testing reaction times during a season to check for concussion damage.

Martin was pleased with the short 鈥渆levator speeches鈥� the teens had for the ideas.

鈥淚f you were in an elevator with the CEO, and you told them that, they鈥檇 understand exactly what you’re building,鈥� Martin said. 鈥淵ou all did a really, really good job with that.鈥�

He then pushed them further: Figure out how a customer using the product for the first time would experience it and how many steps it would take to be able to use the core function. Are instructions hard? Does it have sign-ons? Privacy checks?

For Wilson, mixing entrepreneurs like Martin with teens just starting to think about running a business is a big step in helping guide them. He considers it one of the core features, as Martin put it, in making the club a great resource for students who would otherwise have little help.

鈥淚f you’re 19, 20 and you’re a go-getter, where do you go?鈥� Wilson asked. 鈥淭hat’s the purpose of this floor.鈥�

But the upbeat mood belies the more serious reason that brings many of them here: They鈥檙e missing too much school. A short distance from southern California鈥檚 famous theme parks, the bright blue stucco building has become an extension of the Buena Park School District鈥檚 response to soaring absenteeism. The club is a place to make friends and for many, offers the only stability they鈥檝e had during the pandemic.

鈥淲e are serving a need that the school hasn鈥檛 been able to fill,鈥� said Luz Valenzuela-Trout, director of operations.

The district鈥檚 partnership with the club is an example of the extensive steps many educators nationally are taking to track down students missing school and reverse unprecedented levels of disengagement. But those efforts are rubbing up against the sheer scope of the problem. Chronic absenteeism has hit 40% in, New York City and Los Angeles, and is reaching dangerously high numbers in many districts in between.

鈥淭he pandemic radically changed norms about going to school,鈥� said Emily Bailard, CEO of , a company that partners with school districts to improve attendance.

It has compounded issues that have always contributed to absenteeism, from lack of food at home to bullying in school, she said. Many teens began working or added more hours at their jobs to help out their families. Now educators 鈥渉ave to be able to address four or five things instead of one or two.鈥�

Elsie Brise帽o Simonovski, the Buena Park district鈥檚 director of student and community services, sometimes scours apartment complexes with granola bars in her pockets to round up children who might otherwise not make it to class. She escorts families to gas stations to fill up their cars 鈥� courtesy of a state grant that covers fuel costs if parents show they鈥檙e taking their kids to school.

Yvette Cantu, the district鈥檚 chief academic officer, said even high-achieving students have racked up more absences than usual during the pandemic. Such students often thrive on positive feedback from adults, she said, something they missed during closures and quarantine.

鈥楩or no reason鈥� 

In some districts, chronic absenteeism far exceeds the 10% a year that typically defines the problem. In March, the U.S. Government Accountability Office showing that over a million teachers 鈥� nearly half 鈥� had at least one student during the 2020-21 school year that never showed up for class. 

Some educators say they haven鈥檛 seen any improvement since then.

Jenevieve Jackson, a digital photography and video teacher in the Orange County Public Schools in Florida, has some students who have only been in class twice the entire year. Others have racked up over 80 absences. 

鈥淢any of the absences are for no reason. The students who were not that excited about school in the first place are even less motivated,鈥� Jackson said. The district hired 鈥渋ntervention teachers鈥� to help struggling students, she said, but 鈥渢hey鈥檙e often used to cover the massive teacher and sub shortage and to proctor exams.鈥�

Schools are under pressure to reduce chronic absenteeism because most states track it for federal accountability purposes. Those rates, however, offer little information about what schools are doing to improve attendance, according to Jing Liu, an education professor at the University of Maryland. 

He thinks that needs to change. In published by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, he recommended reporting attendance in a way that goes beyond chronic absenteeism. He proposed an 鈥渁ttendance value-added鈥� measure that would reveal schools鈥� contributions to reducing absenteeism and offer 鈥渁 much fairer鈥� comparison.

Focusing on ninth graders, Liu analyzed 16 years of attendance data from a diverse, urban school district in California with 60,000 students. On average, students in the sample 鈥� he would not identify the district 鈥� missed 79 class periods each year, or roughly 11 school days. 

But when he disregarded characteristics that schools can鈥檛 control 鈥� like race, gender and poverty level 鈥� attendance rates leaped by 28 class periods, or about four days, in schools with a strong value-added result. In some schools, the average rates increased as much as eight days. 

Todd Rogers, a public policy professor at Harvard University who studied absenteeism and launched , said the concept 鈥渟eems like an amazing idea.鈥� Nudging parents to get their children to school and showing them how absences add up 鈥� Rogers studied 鈥� only reduces chronic absenteeism by 10% to 15%. 

鈥淭here’s no silver bullet, so the goal is to do everything you can that works,鈥� he said.

But for the time being, schools are struggling to address the problem in front of them.

鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be really hard in the short term until behaviors and school norms stabilize,鈥� Rogers said.

鈥楾he heavy lift鈥�

In the Metro Nashville Public Schools 鈥� with a 30% chronic absenteeism rate this year 鈥� Carol Lampkin, the district鈥檚 director of attendance services, said students are less likely to come to school if their teachers are absent, a problem that has intensified with staff members out because of COVID.

The issue has fueled creative approaches to reminding parents of the importance of keeping their children in school. Staff members recently gathered at a local Baptist church as part of their newest strategy 鈥� offering information on COVID vaccines, housing and transportation assistance in hopes of pinpointing the reasons children miss school.

Families whose children have at least half a dozen absences were more likely to get an invitation or a knock on the door, urging them to attend the event.

鈥淭he idea was to take the heavy lift off of the schools,鈥� Lampkin said. 鈥淥ur schools, our teachers, our principals 鈥� are dealing with so much.鈥�

Lampkin thought grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, served while DJs spun family-friendly tunes, would be more effective at getting frequently absent students back in class than stern warnings about truancy. 

Sonya Thomas, executive director of Nashville PROPEL, a parent advocacy organization, said she appreciates what the district is trying to do, but thinks officials could be overlooking important reasons students are absent. 

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think it has anything to do with affordable housing,鈥� she said. She urged educators to ask themselves, 鈥淲hat does the school culture look like when [students] enter the building?鈥� 

She鈥檚 worked with families whose children have been suspended multiple times this year for dress code violations, and she recently held a to draw attention to a Black student who reported being called the N-word by a paraprofessional. (A spokesman for the district said the employee has been placed on administrative leave and will 鈥渇ace appropriate disciplinary action鈥� if the report is substantiated.)

鈥淲e鈥檝e got to dig deeper. Is that child being bullied at school?鈥� Thomas asked. 鈥淚s that child feeling like they鈥檙e not doing well?鈥�

Liu鈥檚 research backs up Thomas鈥檚 concerns. Examining three years of survey responses from students, he found that the most likely way to improve the value-added measure was to increase their sense of safety at school.

Meanwhile, Simonovski in Buena Park developed her own method of recognizing schools for reducing absenteeism. Instead of just giving awards to those with the highest attendance 鈥� which meant a lot of repeat winners 鈥� she highlights schools showing the most improvement.

Winners get what she described as a sort of 鈥淧ublishers Clearinghouse鈥� ceremony 鈥� balloons, certificates and trays of treats. 

That tells schools, 鈥渨e鈥檙e paying attention,鈥� she said, 鈥渁nd we鈥檙e celebrating these checkpoints with you.”

Lead Image: Boys did their homework in the teen room at the Boys and Girls Club of Buena Park. The local school district鈥檚 partnership with the club is addressing chronic absenteeism. (Linda Jacobson)